Notes: Made by the same people responsible for Spectral Force, among others, this is based on a dating sim / battle video game that has not been released in North America.

Yes, folks, that's your cue to get the pitchforks and shovels ready.

Rating:

Mars of Destruction

Synopsis

In the year 2010, a space mission to Mars goes horribly awry on reentry. Soon afterwards, Tokyo is besieged by "Ancients", and the defense of the world is placed, predictably, in the hands of a bunch of cute girls, and a guy in a power suit. And then the Ancients deliver a great surprise about the truth behind humanity.

All in twenty minutes!

Review

THEM Anime used to feature a humor series known as "Reduced Anime", in which one of the reviewers or readers would try to deliver the plot of an anime in less than a minute.

We never dared to think that someone would actually try to animate it.

That's right, in less than twenty minutes, Mars of Destruction attempts to show an introduction, several action sequences, cute girls with guns, a struggling protagonist, and even scenes set in the United States, all in order to deliver the Grave Important Secret About Mankind.

The girls' designs are sorta kinda cute, like well-executed fanart.

That is the only thing remotely worth complimenting in this one-shot, because otherwise this entire production really deserves some serious ... well ... destruction.

For starters, one of the girls is sacrificed immediately to show us that the Ancients are deadly laser-spitting decapitating bastards. (Yeah, the girls are named, albeit only once each throughout the duration of the film.) And then we are introduced to the obligatory angsty power suit wearing guy, Takeru, who pretty much gets the living bejesus kicked out of him in two battles, until the Big Bad Guy dangles all the surviving girls in front of him in various stages of (thankfully fully clothed) duress. 'Cause, you know, after his minions blow the head off the first girl, he's just gonna tease the main guy by toying with the rest. Oh save us, Takeru!

Not that we care about any of the cast whatsoever, seeing as, with twenty minutes runtime (including the credits!), there is absolutely no time for character development. Yep, the whole show makes us assume these Valley girls are police officers, martial arts experts, and specialists. With that sort of egregious handwave, you might as well call me the King of Spain.

The animation backing up these poorly plotted monster fights is also total crapola, with student-level CG and blocking, and frame rates that would make Tale of Genji look like a rave. Even funnier, we get perhaps the most unintentionally funny soundtrack I've ever heard on an anime, as these fights are set to cheap Casio synthesizer versions of classical music, much of it completely freaking inappropriate to the context. Also, the voice actors ... well ... they suck. They couldn't sell the lines if they came with winning lottery tickets.

The real killer is the hilarious pronouncement ("twist ending") at the end of the film, in which the Ancients reveal that the human race, in fact, are the real invaders, and that we usurped this planet from them, the real Earthlings.

Which, y'know, would've been interesting if there had actually been a remotely believable plot, or if I'd had any reason to care about this show, but after twenty minutes of crappy fighting and terrible acting, this just comes out flatter than a possum that's lost a fight with freeway traffic.

At least The Eyes of MARS tried to have a plot. Mars of Destruction is so flimsy that a DVD of this feature would be right at home in a Salvador Dali painting.

Don't buy, don't rent, don't even download this piece of crap. Even twenty minutes is too much time to waste on this sub-student work.

Someday, we may see a sci-fi horror anime worthy of comparison to Alien, but this doesn't even compare to Iczelion. — Carlos Ross

Recommended Audience: There is a fairly significant amount of violence in this very short film. Teens and above only.